Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Awww, poor baby, real estate fall down!


Keith over at the Housing Panic Blog shines light on the fact that realtors can't resist it either. They too just had to partake in the irrational exhuberance of the housing market Ponzi scheme themselves, choosing to use lies and deception to make money for themselves.

And now they're probably wondering just what happened to all of those houses bursting with so much value that cash was overflowing out of the windows?

It was an American dream.

And now it's an American nightmare.

An example of evildoers getting their just desserts? Perhaps.

It's more a reminder that when you start thinking you know it all, that you're better than everybody else, that you deserve 6% of the sale value just because that's the way it's always been and always should be (and act as if you worked so hard to get that lower price - for less commission? - yeah right!), that consumers don't have the right to free, complete, unaltered market and pricing data, and that real estate "never goes down" in value, that "15% is in the bag" (thanks Gary Watts!) - when you consider all of those things then yes, bad things can happen. Kharma.

Unfortunately, thousands of realtors in the United States of America believed and drank in every word that the NAR served up to the main stream media, no questions asked. No critical thinking necessary as to what might be best for consumers- like, oh I don't know, let's say the truth -that homedebtors, given their incomes, should never have been cheerleaded into homes they could never otherwise afford using risky instruments from the "mortgage broker I know" to seal the deal and the sales commission.

It all comes home to roost. And it's very uncomfortable.

Realtors are the real estate industry's self-proclaimed "trusted advisors", to whom all prospective home buyers and home sellers should flock.

There are some good, honest Realtors out there. That must be said. But let me also say this: They are very, very, very hard to find. I mean, really hard to find. I would argue that especially now, during these strained periods when single family homes and condos stay on the market for 249 days or more, that the good realtors, the cream of the crop, ones that really care about their customers and future referrals, rise to the occasion and survive.

What happens to the morally bankrupt, I'll-do-this-for-you-but-don't-forget-my-6% realtors?
They'll survive this too. But their reputation, along with that of the NAR, the sales association that protects them and propogates lies to the market place, will likely never recover fully.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great Post Markus Arelius, especailly the part
"that when you start thinking you know it all, that you're better than everybody else," etc. etc.

you forgot to mention
What goes up always, always, ALWAYS comes down, when you least suspect it and can least afford it to come down.

Easy success creates a feeling of invulnerability, a belief that one can never do wrong or fail, the investors in the dot bombs learned the hard way about that. Easy money is easily lost money, its lost easier and quicker than when coming in.

lastly, "What happens to the morally bankrupt, I'll-do-this-for-you-but-don't-forget-my-6% realtors?
They'll survive this too."
The burger jobs are still waiting for them to go back to, but not the burger flipper jobs, those are reserved for the dependable and HONEST employees.